The funeral of Sun Yung
is not to acknowledge this death,
This loss
This event
This murder
This ending of one life. 

But to celebrate 
The beginning
And the end

Of her new lie

Did I say lie?
I meant LIFE

Today—from now on—
You will be Jenny.

You and everyone else
will act as if 
Sun Yung never existed.

You will soon forget that other name.

You will only answer to this name
As if the other didn’t exist.

You will be this other Jenny person

And you will be part of this lie too.

You will play the role so convincingly that 
One day you will accept that lie as the truth

And fight people til you are blue in the face

That THIS IS YOUR FAMILY

And you don’t care to ever meet your other family.

No one will question it.

Most importantly

YOU will not question it.

Until you do.

One day

While looking in the mirror

The image begins to blur

And you feel yourself
Like Alice 

Going through the looking glass and 

You see Sun Yung

And the life she could have led

Had no one killed her
Buried her
Forgotten about her

She looks like you

She sounds like you

But the words 
Are foreign. 

She speaks Korean
Just as you did when you first arrived.

Because of you
She lost her voice.

You killed that part of you
Silenced that part of you

Sun Yung was you
You were Sun Yung

But you had to wipe her from existence 

To become Jenny

Perfect American
Fits into a white family 
Jenny

Named for two maternal grandmothers
A burden that you 
will never be able to carry

Alone.

So you stood 
On the carcass of Sun Yung
Just to carry 
This burden.

Sun Yung had to end
So you could begin.

But you never truly started.

She reaches thru the mirror for you

But you can’t bear to look

Because you see the hurt
And anger
and NEED

in her eyes

the blood falling like tears. 

You denied her existence
So many times
Ashamed of the Asian part of you

and you realize that 
YOU
Are the reason

She is dead today.
You and your lies

The lies everyone told you
Of how lucky you were to be saved.

“BUT I was just a child”

You cry and implore
To the reflection.
The reflection mouths back
“I was a child too.”

And you realize this is one lie
You can’t even convince yourself of.

You are complicit.
The dutiful subservient model minority daughter.

But every one played a part in 
This Farce
This comedy of errors:

Holt
Korea
Your adoptive parents
The small town
Society

They all told you
That adoption was this magical
Wonderful
Answer.

And you abetted it. 

You finally meet Sun Yung’s gaze

And touch the cold glass of the mirror
And through the tears

Mouth “I’m sorry.”

And she implores

“Say my name.
Acknowledge me.”

“SUN YUNG you existed
And we killed you.
And no one mourned you
Or acknowledged you 
Or your pain.”

Suddenly you can understand
Sun Yung’s Korean
As she says
I was there with you
When you were being sexually abused by your adopted brother.

It was my face that people saw
Whenever you were teased for being Korean.

I took on your pain
Even though you never acknowledged mine.

And you realized that Sun Yung 
Was the Korean part 

And Jenny was the American
Who tried desperately
To lie and clown and make everyone believe 
The great lie.

And as the tears blur your vision

Sun Yung and Jenny
Blur into the same person

And as we lean our foreheads against the looking glass
we hold each other up
and meld together
until we can’t tell
where one ends and the other begins.